


Terminus Wars

by militaryhistory



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Mercenaries, Pirates, Pre-Canon, Shepard will not be appearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:48:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29642562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/militaryhistory/pseuds/militaryhistory
Summary: Not every problem attracts or requires the notice of a Spectre, but such need to be resolved anyway. Enter men like Gregory Schuder, mercenary.Note: this is more a collection of short, interlinked stories than a novel.





	Terminus Wars

"Got 'em?"

"Yep."

"What's it look like?"

"Two snipers, couple of shotgun troopers with overchargers, a few soldiers, plus that asari, Kylia Galnor. Looks like that salarian told us the truth."

"You sound surprised."

"He's your contact, not mine, Greg."

"That he is," Captain Gregory Schuder said as he briefly turned to look at his second-in-command. "I also trust him. So should you."

"Yes, sir," Lieutenant Marcus Kalencka replied, and Schuder shook his head slightly as he heard the disbelief in his second's voice.

"You'll see," he said, then looked through his binoculars at the slopes to the side of the bowl that the pirates had landed their shuttle and set up camp in, the better to hide the stolen cargo. "Looks like Bates and Hawthorne are in position, and…there's Whately and M'Zangwe. Tell Sergeant Falkenberg to get his squad ready, then get with Sergeant Pizarro and wait for the signal."

"Yes, sir," Kalencka replied, and crawled off. As he left, Schuder rolled over to look at the tech specialists.

"Y'all ready?" he asked rhetorically. The three nodded.

"Good. Get ready, and don't get in the firefight."

"That won't be a problem, sir," Sergeant Patricia Ferguson replied as Corporals Tom Quill and Jay Alana nodded. "No desire to get into that cauldron."

As two minutes passed, Schuder thought, " _If Kal isn't with Pizarro, I'll be a monkey's uncle_ ," and fired a sniper round into the asari's head.

Her head snapped back, protected by the kinetic barrier of her suit, before four more sniper shots took both her and the two snipers out.

The shotgun troopers overcharged their weapons and fired, sending the equivalent of rocket blasts into the pirates' rendezvous site and throwing bodies around like they were doll rags as the shrapnel and overpressure overcame shields and armor. As the sound of those blasts fell silent, the assault riflemen and snipers swept the camp for anyone that had been missed in the initial attack as Schuder mentally took a step back and checked the overall situation.

A couple of assault rifles rattled, and he saw a pirate fall, and after that there was no sign of movement.

"Alright," Schuder said as he slung his sniper rifle and pulled his assault rifle out, "Falkenberg, with me. Kalencka, keep overwatch with the snipers and Pizarro. Holler if their friends make it past."

"Roger," he replied.

The techs moved down the hill with him as he trotted to catch up with Falkenberg's squad, which was fanning out to search the smoking remnants of the rendezvous site for survivors.

"Sir," Quill asked as they got halfway down the slope, "why aren't those containers destroyed?"

"Most companies really overbuild their cargo containers," Schuder replied absently. "I've seen these survive direct hits from a Mako cannon. They're rock solid—maybe solider," he added as they came up to Sergeant Falkenberg, whose men were slapping medi-gel on several of the mercenaries.

"Prisoners, Sergeant?"

"Yes, sir. Two batarians, a turian, and the asari, sir."

"She survived three sniper hits in two seconds?"

"Barely, sir. As it is, she's got a massive concussion."

"You've got her amp?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. What about the others?"

"They're the usual gutter sweepings, sir."

"We'll take 'em back to base anyways. D'you have that asari's omni-tool?"

"Right here, sir," Falkenberg said, pulling it out as he spoke.

"Pass it to Ferguson," Schuder replied, then turned to Quill and Alana as Ferguson accepted the tool and began to hack into it. "Check the containers and the bodies. See what's there."

"Yes, sir," they replied. Schuder turned back to Falkenberg as Quill and Alana, as was their custom, flipped a coin to see who would check the bodies and who would check the crates to see who they were registered to.

As Quill sighed and knelt down to rummage through a dead batarian's pockets, Schuder said, "Sergeant, get these prisoners back to the shuttles and tell Petracci and Iverson to get over here to pick up some cargo. Maybe there's some of our client's cargo, maybe it's something we can use ourselves."

"Yes, sir," Falkenberg replied, and soon, his squad and the prisoners were moving towards the cave where they'd hidden the shuttle several hours before.

Schuder put his hand to his ear as his radio crackled. "Captain, captain. You there?" Tobias Bullfinch called in from orbit.

"I'm here, Lieutenant. You got their shuttle?"

"Yes, sir. Caught them as they came in. Fired off a warning salvo and they stopped cold. They're in custody."

"Good. Make 'em set down near my position and stay in orbit."

"Yes, sir."

Schuder grinned. _No casualties, should get a good bounty for this crew, seeing as they've made themselves a nuisance, and we might get some really valuable salvage out of it. This was a good run._

* * *

After the platoon, the formerly stolen cargo, and the prisoners landed on the _John Hawkwood_ , Schuder went back to his quarters to catch up on paperwork and get some rest.

"Let's see, here," he said as he went through his mail. "Message from Mr. Von, asking if we've made any progress, seems concerned." He tapped his chin, typed out a message saying they'd made a major breakthrough, sent it, then kept on going. Alana had determined that the cargo had been supposed to go to Dobrovolski, in the Pamyat system. No great surprise. He debated about whether to set course for there or not, then decided to check and see if they might be needed elsewhere. If they weren't, they could go there. If they were, they'd contact the company and arrange to drop the cargo off somewhere on their way.

He kept going through his mail.

 _Ah, a job offer. Usually these don't happen while we're on a contract. Must not be too urgent, then…now, let's see,_ this _looks interesting,_ he thought as he pulled the message up. _It's a message from a quarian named Zor'Kal vas Ryel. Apparently…oh my. This'll be good. But, moving on…now here's the message I was waiting for. Looks like we're going to Pamyat after all._

He read through it, nodded, shut off his omnitool, got to his feet, and walked down towards the bridge.

"Bullfinch, set course for the Pamyat system."

"Yes sir. On the way."

He turned before the bridge corridor, however, and made his way down to the brig. It was a little more extensive and better-equipped than it usually would be on a ship this size, but intel was a little more important for his band than it was for most mercs.

He really wished he was pretentious enough to call it a free company. Band just seemed unprofessional, and he was a professional. Maybe just call it an organization? That also didn't seem right, since they were so small. He was still trying to decide what to do when he walked into the brig.

He looked around. Each of the three foot soldiers was in a separate cells to make sure they didn't have time to come up with a story. Each member of the shuttle crew was in a cell with one of the pirates from the ground, so that they couldn't come up with one either. That left the asari, who was in the interrogation cell with Quill. Fortunately, he didn't have to go in there.

Instead, he went into the observation room, where Ferguson stood, speaking into a microphone. "That's definitely not right," she said. "She was on Ilium a week ago, and saw Falchor Obuda while she was there." She turned and tapped her headset, and Schuder nodded.

"Keep working on her, Tom," she said. "Captain's here." She hit a button and turned to him.

"You're here earlier than usual."

"I got a message from one of our contacts in Nos Astra. It was mostly things we already knew, but it also mentioned that Ms. Galnora was hired by the Shadow Broker to snag some cargo—and it might have been the cargo we picked up."

"No wonder she's been so reticent," the sergeant mused. "I was wondering if it was something like that."

"Should we tell her that we know the Shadow Broker wants the cargo we now have?"

Ferguson shook her head. "Not now. If it's true, we'll tip our hand too early. If it's not, it'll let her misdirect us."

"All right. But keep it in the back of your mind."

"'Course I will. Just need to expose a few more lies, and she'll give us everything we need to know when Tom mentions the Shadow Broker."

"Good." He paused. "When you're done breaking Ms. Galnora down, find out what you can about a certain Zor'Kal vas Ryel. He wants us, specifically, but it doesn't seem to be urgent to him. It's probably on the level, but it's strange, and I don't like strange."

"You have a nasty and suspicious mind, sir."

"Probably. How's Alana coming with analyzing that cargo?"

"Last I checked, she said it was all light machinery for building habitat parts, nothing special about it" She paused. "What are we going to do with it, anyway?"

"Take it to the original destination, which we're doing now."

"Where?"

"Dobrovolski—which also happens to be where that quarian is."

"The cargo'll be in high demand there, but nothing that would concern the Shadow Broker." She shrugged. "Once the interrogations are done, I'll get you what I know. I'll also start checking on vas Ryel—it might be a pure coincidence, but best to know if it's otherwise."

"Excellent. I'll see you when you're finished."

As he left the brig, he heard Ferguson say, "Good work so far, Tom. Now, ask her about that unfortunate volus…"

He walked back to the bridge and took a moment to look around. Bullfinch was in his pilot's chair, as he usually was when he wasn't sleeping. The man took both his job and himself seriously, which wasn't especially surprising, given that aside from some of the newer shooters he was the youngest person on the ship. That having been said, right now he was the officer on watch, so he was exactly where he needed to be.

Kalencka wasn't here, unsurprisingly—he had the next watch, and he was probably taking a well-deserved rest right now.

If he hadn't been the leader, Schuder would have said he was off-duty. As he was, however, he was simply on standby in case something happened that Bullfinch couldn't handle. Besides, he liked looking at the stars going by as they traveled. Helped him think.

Why would the Shadow Broker want parts for habitats, and why would he want someone to hijack them? It wasn't like they were expensive or anything. Maybe someone really, really wanted to make sure that no one knew they were setting up a colony?

That didn't make much sense either. The galaxy was a big place, and hiding wasn't hard. Garden worlds tended to get the once-over, true, but anywhere else usually didn't get any kind of scrutiny unless it had a lot of resources that were easy to get at. And what was Zor'Kal vas Ryel's game?

No matter. "How long to Dobrovolski, Mr. Bullfinch?"

"From now? Twelve hours, Captain."

"Good. Wake me when we arrive, if you would."

"Yes, Captain."

There was a lot to be said for Dobrovolski, as far as commerce went. Unfortunately, little of it could be said for Schuder's primary line of work.

While the retrieval fee had been quite handsome, and the delivery fee had been nothing to sneeze at, there just wasn't any work here for them, nor was there in the Hekate system. There was some work over in the Sheol system for individual mercs and small teams, but nothing for a band like his. Hoplos usually had work, mostly on Trident, but it was coming up on hurricane season and he didn't want to be stuck there for months.

In other words, now that the cargo was unloaded, there was no reason for them to stay here, besides giving his people some shore leave, which they deserved and they could easily find the means for here. Mercs and miners had _very_ similar tastes in entertainment.

Meanwhile, the dossier Ferguson had just given him regarding vas Ryel made for extremely interesting reading. The quarian owned full or part interests in multiple ships, and all of the ones he owned completely were entirely quarian-crewed. In and of itself, that was a bit eye-raising. The Migrant Fleet was something of a self-contained entity, and it was extraordinarily rare to see a quarian outside it except when they were on their Pilgrimage. Quarian ships outside the Migrant Fleet were rarer than hens' teeth, especially in Citadel space.

However, what made things even more interesting was that vas Ryel's ships had been seen in multiple systems where unfortunate things had happened to people who'd mistreated, abused, or cheated quarians. There were indications that he was very close to the Admiralty Board, and Schuder wouldn't be surprised if a search of his ships revealed that they were outfitted with more than just their stated armament, which was already substantial for merchant ships, and quarters for ops teams.

Which made the fact he was coming to him with a contract extremely suspicious. Why would such a man require the services of a scruffy band of human mercenaries?

He took a moment to weigh the risks against the benefits, then shrugged. There wouldn't be any harm in just talking to him. As long as no funds were exchanged, if you said "Sorry, no deal" the worst that would happen would be that the potential client would just not look at you next time he needed something done—and there was work enough that such a thing was affordable.

Besides, learning about the quarians was one of the reasons he was out here, and contact between humans and quarians was infrequent enough that any interaction could be a learning experience.

He keyed a message asking for a time and place where they could meet into his omni-tool, then sent it off and started working on some of the payroll paperwork. He was rather surprised when he got a reply message less than fifteen minutes later, asking him to meet at the Torflan Café in an hour.

That seemed like rather short notice to him, until he looked it up on the local extranet and saw that the place was on the station the _Hawkwood_ was docked at. That implied some very interesting things, some of them more worrisome than others.

He called up Kalencka.

"Kal, I'm going ashore to meet a client."

"Understood. Do you want to take anyone with you?"

Schuder paused. "Duncan and Mubarak," he said after a moment. "Tell them to be at the Torflan Cafe in plainclothes in half an hour. Tell them to be on the lookout for quarians."

Kal quirked an eyebrow. "A quarian is requesting our services?"

"Exactly. They usually keep things in-house, don't like getting outsiders involved in their business. Why ask us? I smell opportunity."

With opportunity, of course, came risk, but that needn't be said. Wouldn't be said, over open channels like this.

"Just be careful."

"Of course."

* * *

When Schuder arrived at the Torflan he took a moment to look around before he stepped inside. Whatever else he was, vas Ryel was certainly security conscious—there were at least three quarians in the plaza who had no apparent reason to be there, which was usually a quick ticket to police harassment, which meant no quarian did it unless they had a very good reason for it. There were also a male and female quarian inside the place, according to Duncan, in addition to vas Ryel, who'd been there for about ten minutes.

He'd sent Kal a message to be ready to send out an all-hands-on-deck at a moment's notice. He didn't think this was going to turn into a snatch-and-grab, but he'd been wrong about things before. Besides, his XO liked having things to worry about.

He stepped through the door, walked over to where vas Ryel was sitting, and simply took the other chair himself. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. vas Ryel," he said quietly.

"Captain Schuder," the quarian replied, as quietly. "Your reputation as a decisive man is well-earned."

"Flattery will only get you so far. Why is a quarian looking to hire outside mercenaries?" Schuder asked as he looked at the menu, which was the dextro version of the Torflan's offerings. Unsurprisingly for out here, it was mostly asari with a smattering of salarian, although the ubiquitous hamburger made an appearance.

"Occasionally we find it necessary to accept outside help. Particularly when anonymity is a concern. We are not exactly inconspicuous—and since, for some reason, people think even a chance grouping of quarians means there's a conspiracy, whenever a group of us does something it tends to attract unwanted attention."

Schuder nodded. Quarians reminded him of Gypsies back on old Earth—mistrusted because of their rootlessness, they had a reputation as cheats and thieves. He couldn't speak as to the Gypsies, never having met any of them, but the quarians he'd run into tended to give like for like. Deal square with them, they'd deal square with you. Try to cheat them, and they'd out-cheat you every time.

He was a square dealer. Made life less complicated,

"I'm sending a file to your omni-tool right now. You may want to consider reading it while you wait for your food." vas Ryel fell silent as the waiter approached and Schuder gave his order, then set to reading.

He barely noticed his food arriving, and continued to read as he ate. When he was done with the file, which was before he was done with his food, he looked up at the quarian. "You understand that I'm going to need to verify some of this before I give you an answer."

"Of course. If you'd said anything else I wouldn't hire you. But it all fits, does it not?"

It certainly did—and it fit with the information he had that he was reasonably certain vas Ryel didn't know he had.

"When do you need an answer by?"

"Two days. Now if you will excuse me, Captain Schuder, I must be going."

"Of course. You're a busy fellow."

As the quarian left, Schuder sent the file to Kalencka and Ferguson, along with a message reading "Tell the asari we know about Plan Hachium. See if that cracks her. We need to verify this."

Schuder finished his meal and stood, noting that the quarian "couple" had left about five minutes after their principal. Good tradecraft.

As he walked out the door, he noticed that only one of the quarians loitering outside was still there, and wondered for a moment if he was actually just loitering. That was one of the problems with this business—you started seeing things that weren't actually there.

Which brought up an issue he'd never really had before.

There was something bothering him about the report. It had all the information he would have usually asked for, and some that he normally wouldn't have but still found useful. It was extraordinarily rare for one of his clients to be so helpful. There was almost always some bit of vital information that they didn't want to reveal, because it was either embarrassing, proprietary, or both.

Admittedly, the circumstances here were a little bit different than the average—none of vas Ryel's interests were directly involved, so there was less at stake for him if Schuder decided to do something with the information besides use it to plan the operation—but in some ways that only made the whole thing more puzzling. Why did he care about this 'Plan Hachium'?

There was definitely something that he wasn't telling them. He'd have said it was a family thing, but Ferguson's file on vas Ryel was pretty complete, and it didn't mention anything about a wife or kids or siblings, and usually the involvement of cousins and nieces or nephews didn't elicit that kind of secrecy.

Maybe a lover? That was a possibility, but quarians rarely took lovers outside of the Fleet, the popularity of vids like _Fleet and Flotilla_ and its seedier imitators notwithstanding, and adult quarians rarely got into situations where they could be kidnapped by pirates.

Technology? There was a distinct possibility. But it seemed odd that vas Ryel would be reticent about it. Usually if that was what was at stake the client mentioned it up front so as to avoid any unfortunate accidents.

His omni-tool pinged with a message from Ferguson, and he took a look at his secure e-mail. _Cracked like an egg. Everything she knows matches with what he gave you, with the caveat that she didn't know much. She also spilled about who was supposed to pick up those supplies._

Schuder nodded. Men like the Shadow Broker tended to compartmentalize their operations, usually beyond all reason. But some things inevitably leaked, people being people, even if they were aliens.

He sent her a message back. _Meet me in the conference room in ten. Bring Kal._

* * *

When all three of them arrived in the command room, Schuder looked over at Ferguson. "What did our asari prisoner tell you?"

"The supplies were supposed to go to Fenris Lancaster."

"Great. One of Hock's cronies and intermediaries," Kalencka said with a sigh.

"Hock?" Ferguson asked. Schuder reminded himself that while she wasn't new to intel work, she was new out here in the Terminus.

"Donovan Hock, mercenary. He's made his money off of putting down uppity low-level workers for various corporations. Takes jobs most mercs consider too dirty to touch."

The intel sergeant's face looked like she'd bitten into something rancid as Kal spoke. Schuder quirked an eyebrow.

"My father is a union man," she explained. "He's got lots of stories about dealing with men like Hock."

That was no surprise. Outside of Council Space, unionization was dangerous business—and usually more dangerous the more it was needed. There was no love lost between labor and management in the Terminus Systems

"Anyway," she continued, "Plan Hachium is apparently a scheme to set up a pirate base near some of the shipping lanes—lanes that the few quarian merchant freighters use. Our prisoner doesn't think they're specifically targeting the quarians, but they will get hit."

"Which still doesn't answer the question of why they're hiring us."

"That's obvious, sir," Kalencka replied, and Schuder turned and quirked an eyebrow, remembering that his second had a little more experience in these matters than he did.

"He doesn't want to end up on the wrong end of the free rider problem. If it's a random band of mercenaries that does the job and it can't be traced to him, he avoids that."

That made sense, but there was still something niggling at him. He shrugged. "No matter. Do the numbers fit?"

"Yes. It looks like our prisoner's bunch was supposed to be part of this operation. They're going to need some time to find some more people."

"Good. I'm inclined to take this job. Kal?"

"Making contacts with the quarians would definitely be beneficial. Say what you will about them, but they punch above their weight. They also know more about the geth than anyone else."

"Ferguson?"

"Agreed. Contact with the Migrant Fleet is something we've been looking to make for awhile." She looked around. "Shouldn't Bullfinch be here?"

"I ordered him to take some shore leave," Schuder replied, "And this isn't the final decision yet. If he can come up with a good reason not to take this job, we'll discuss it further. Meanwhile, get to work on those other prisoners we caught. See if you can get anything useful out of them."

As it happened, Bullfinch didn't have any objections. In fact, he heartily approved of it.

"Of course we should do this," he said. "Leaving aside contact with the Migrant Fleet, letting these pirates run around isn't good for us, either."

He grinned. "And besides, _how_ much was the initial offer in the file?"

It was enough to keep the outfit running for two months, and Schuder had sent a message off to vas Ryel that they were willing to take the job, but they would need to negotiate on the price. He gave one that was about twenty percent higher than the initial price. That was how the game was played, and he knew that vas Ryel knew it.

Which was why he surprised when the quarian sent an offer that was ten percent higher than the initial offer.

"He really, really wants us to take this job," Schuder muttered. The other three nodded. Usually the next offer the client gave was five percent higher, at most. What was going on here? "I'll send him the standard counter." Seventeen percent higher than the initial.

Schuder's eyebrows flew up when the reply came. _Done._ Attached was a file. A rather large one.

He locked down his omni-tool. He doubted the new client was attempting to hack them, but one never knew. "Ferguson, check this out and make sure the file's safe."

He handed it over to her and she ran a few diagnostics before nodding. "I _think_ it's clean. But, well…"

Schuder nodded. Ferguson had some of the best cybersecurity programs he'd ever heard of, but if anyone could sneak past them it would be the quarians. "Activate The Box," he said, and she nodded. "The Box" was a very special computer server—one that was specifically designed to receive information, but not transmit it out.

Once that was done, he accessed The Box, and looked over the file. Now it all made sense. Finally. "Turns out it is a family thing. It looks like these guys grabbed a nephew of vas Ryel's, name of Lor'Tal nar Alarei, while he was on his pilgrimage. His one and only nephew, as it happens. They're holding him for ransom—and he's offering more than a third of the initial offer, if he's returned alive." A hard man, was Zor'Kal vas Ryel. Most men would have started with the ransom issue.

Of course, that brought up some other questions, but Schuder didn't care whether or not his clients had their priorities in order. What mattered to him was that they didn't ask him to do something that clashed with his priorities.

"Bullfinch, set up a course for the Hourglass Nebula, and to Ploitari from the mass relay. As soon as shore leave is up, we're going there." He paused. "Oh, and Kal. Notify Pizarro and Falkenberg to come to the conference room at 0900 tomorrow. That goes for the rest of you too. We have plans to make."

There had been a map included in the file, and one of the features of The Box was that it had a projector. Nothing that went into it ever went out.

Schuder grinned. One of the old jokes about councils of war was that they were never willing to fight. Not his soldiers. He usually had to restrain _them,_ which was a problem that he was _happy_ to have.

He'd wondered, sometimes, whether or not he could set up an organization like the Blue Suns or Eclipse using his current troops as the core of it. It was certainly possible, but it was probably best to stay the commander of a small-but-elite group known mostly to movers and shakers rather getting famous.

Mostly because the movers and shakers tended not to take it personally unless they'd somehow been betrayed or it was otherwise personal. If their mercenaries came off second-best in a shootout and they lost some assets? They regarded it as the cost of doing business, and might even hire you in the future. They also tended not to ask a lot of questions.

When you got famous, that usually meant ticking off people who took things personally, and people who asked lots of questions started paying attention.

They really couldn't afford that.

* * *

Ploitari was a good system for a pirate base, Schuder thought as they flew into the system. It was uninhabited, but still close to the shipping lanes, and Zanethu was both uncolonizable, which meant no one paid it much attention, and technically inhabitable, so long as someone was willing to put in a minimum of effort to set up habitats and supply lines.

There was also no real reason for anyone to visit the system, which meant that if a ship did show up, it was going to either a fellow pirate, someone coming to take out the base, or someone otherwise up to no good who was unlikely to report to the authorities, which meant that it would be easy to arrange a proper welcoming committee.

Fortunately, Galnora had been given the proper codes, and they were expecting her—in fact, they had been expecting her two days ago, something that the other prisoners had confirmed, along with a few names that would bolster their claim to actually being Galnora's crew. Being late like this could present some issues, but some amount of schedule slippage was normal for operations like this. As long as they had a halfway decent explanation, there'd be no problem.

And they should be getting hailed right about…now.

"Unidentified vessel, this is the _MSV Malacca_. What brings you out here?" asked someone who was probably a turian.

 _They're not even being subtle about it,_ Schuder thought dryly, _though a turian might think he was being clever_. The Malacca Straits were still one of the most notoriously piracy-ridden shipping lanes on Earth.

Ferguson spoke, using her voice software to make it sound like she was Galnora. With any luck, these schmucks wouldn't know her well enough to notice any differences in her speech patterns.

"MSV _Malacca Straits,_ this is the MSV _Iron and Wine,_ " she replied. "We've been out for far too long."

"You can say that again," the voice on the end grunted, giving the countersign. "What took you so long?"

"Stupid merchants weren't on schedule," she snarled. "Then it turned out one of their cargo doors was busted, so it took twice as long to shift everything before we scuttled her. Be glad we're only _this_ late."

"Easy," the turian on the other end said. "The boss has been crawling up my behind ever since you didn't come in on schedule. You could have called."

"Yes, I should definitely send a message through unsecured channels. Are you stupid?" Ferguson asked, not having to fake her annoyance.

Schuder whistled slightly at that, but decided to let it slide. Criminals were rarely inclined to be courteous to each other, after all.

Besides, the sputtering he could hear was _hilarious._

"Look, we're coming in right now, with the goods. I hope you're ready for us, considering that you've had two extra days to prepare for our arrival."

The sputtering continued.

"Just give us the landing coordinates. _MSV Iron and Wine_ out," Ferguson concluded, shutting off the com link before dissolving into a giggling fit. Schuder took a moment to look at his sergeant before giving her a quelling look, mostly because he knew that she really didn't like the fact that she giggled, and he didn't want her to be more embarrassed than she needed to be.

"Ahem. Sorry, sir," she said as her face turned red.

He smiled slightly. "Having fun, Sergeant?"

"Maybe a little bit, sir."

"Just don't let it get in the way of the mission."

"Yes sir. Of course, sir."

"Good," he replied, and sat back in his chair.

The shooters were all ready to go, and Bullfinch had the GARDIAN systems ready to fire. The _Hawkwood_ didn't have a lot of firepower, but it could take out a similar ship with little difficulty. The main problem was that it was fragile, which meant that it could also be easily destroyed.

Fortunately, the lasers were well-concealed and had halfway-decent fields of fire. The _Malacca_ would not last long, once the shooting started.

"ETA?"

"Thirty minutes, sir," Bullfinch replied.

"Good man. The ship's in your hands. Sergeant, Lieutenant," he said as he stood up, "it's time we joined the rest in the cargo hold. We load in thirty."

There were many commanders who would have had their troops in the shuttles from the moment they entered the system. Schuder disagreed, for several reasons. First, pirates and freelance mercenaries were notoriously lax about holding to a tight schedule—even corporatized groups like the Blue Suns, weren't military, which meant some laxness was inevitable—so waiting to load up until they were orbiting the planet was part of maintaining their cover. Second, the more time the troops had to prep in the cargo hold, the more time they had to remember anything they might have forgotten. Third, while there were a lot of things to be said for the Kodiak, it was not something anyone wanted to spend a lot of time in when it was fully loaded, and he saw no reason to put everyone through that unless it was necessary.

He could have waited a little while to go down, but truth be told what he knew about space combat was minimal, and Bullfinch would do better without him looking over his shoulder. The key thing, as always, was timing. And the pilot understood that better than he did when it came to space combat.

And besides, he needed to be with the troops before they went planetside. If nothing else, he could keep them from getting jittery. They'd never run an infiltration op before, although if the enemy knew what the composition of Galnora's crew was the fight would start the moment they debarked the shuttles.

There weren't supposed to be any turrets covering the landing pad, but the shotgunners were ready to fire overcharged rounds just in case—and if there were no turrets, they'd make excellent doorknockers, which they'd almost certainly need.

The next forty-five minutes passed largely without event. The _Hawkwood_ reached its orbit, and the shuttles launched for the planet, flying like they hadn't a care in the world. Jack Petracci and Amy Iverson were both solid pilots, and they were quite capable of deliberately understating their capabilities to those of your typical mercenary pilot without actually endangering anybody.

Which meant that Schuder was able to observe the base as they got closer, and start filling in the details of the plan for take the base. Even so, the plan would still be a bit sketchy, but they'd have the element of surprise, which would make up for a lot. The headquarters building, where they were presumably keeping their quarian prisoner, was set to one side of the landing pad, while the two barracks buildings were set up on two of the others. The final side was taken up by a training area, which Schuder found slightly worrisome. The last thing he needed was for this crew to be run by someone who could convince pirates to actually put effort into something besides pillage and plunder.

On the other hand, best to nip such a problem in the bud before he became a pirate lord, in any case. Such a one would be attractive to a man like Hock, who fancied himself a visionary.

He cleared his head of far off concerns and concentrated on the matter at hand as the shuttles drifted towards the landing pad, which had one already on it. Through the visual pickups, he saw that the welcoming committee was fairly small, which was a problem. One that they'd anticipated, but it would have been nice if all the pirates had come out to meet them. And, now that they were closer, yes, there were turrets, and he designated those as priority targets for all of the shotgunners. It might be overkill, but they could tear his troops and shuttles to shreds if they were allowed to fire. So, best not to let them.

Falkenberg's squad was given the barracks on one side, Pizarro's the other. The snipers would cover the headquarters and make sure nobody got out of it, and hopefully take out anybody fool enough to poke his head out a window, while the rest cleared out the barracks.

That was the plan, anyway, and there was no time to modify it, because they were about to touch the ground.

Ferguson jumped out first. She had better shields than almost everyone else in the company, and she was female, which meant it was much easier for her to pass as an asari. The pirates swaggered up towards the shuttles as Schuder's troops disembarked—unfortunately, one of them must have known Galnora, because he suddenly yelled, "That's not—"

The tech specialist had had her omni-tool ready, as had Alana and Quill, and every mercenary in sight started doing the "my gun just overheated" dance just before getting cut down in a hail of gunfire as the shotgunners blew the turrets to Hell.

"Take 'em, Bullfinch!" Schuder ordered as he rolled towards the first piece of cover he could find and Petracci and Iverson took off and Falkenberg and Pizarro ordered their squads forward to take the barracks. He wondered for a moment where Kal was until he looked over and saw a rather disgruntled-looking lieutenant looking at him.

"Well, looks like what we anticipated could go wrong went wrong," his second-in-command said dryly. "Now we wait for the unanticipated thing to go wrong."

Not three seconds later, Schuder noticed that the headquarters building had a garage, mostly because the door, which was recessed a bit, started opening. He had just enough time to wonder about what was inside before the door came open enough to reveal an M-29 Grizzly that was already trundling forward.

"Take that thing out!" he yelled. If that thing got the chance to use its turret mounted guns it was all going to be over real quick. As a result, every sniper, including him, took careful aim and overclocked their rifles for a moment to try and break down its shield.

It didn't—quite—drop, but the vehicle stopped, and Schuder dared to hope for a moment that the stop would become a reverse.

It did not, and he bit back a groan. The snipers could eventually break through the armor plating, but that would take awhile, and the gun was already tracking towards where Pizarro's men were breaking through the barracks door—

Four overcharged shotgun rounds tore through the air, all impacting in the exact same spot in the front glacis plate. The vehicle gouted smoke and flame through all of its portals, including the turret, and it slewed to a halt.

That was certainly preferable to the alternative, though he would have liked to salvage the thing relatively intact instead of having a hollowed-out shell. No matter no mind. Grizzlys were easier to find than good troops.

Hopefully the kid hadn't been on there, but he had other concerns. The sound of gunfire was coming from both barracks, but nobody was reporting any casualties yet. That might actually last another few minutes.

This, of course, left the question of whether or not they had a back door out of the headquarters. That, however, was what Petracci and Iverson were for. He took a moment to look up, and, yes, they were still there.

So far, so good.

"Barracks One clear," Falkenberg rasped. "Moving your way."

"Barracks Two clear," Pizarro reported. "Coming out now."

"Good," Schuder grunted. "Bullfinch?"

"Done," the pilot's voice came over the radio. "Never knew what hit 'em. Ran up the white flag after the first shot."

"Ship still functional?"

"It'll take some repairs, but she's flyable."

"Good. Keep watch on them until we wrap things up down here and send something up there."

"Yes sir."

Schuder took a moment to check his HUD. Falkenberg and Pizarro were moving in, and it wouldn't be long before they could set up a perimeter around the HQ. After that, it would be a waiting game, but he was pretty sure they could outwait whoever it was. That wasn't a certainty, mind…

One of the doors was opening.

"Cover that door, and hold fire unless fired upon or told otherwise," he ordered. He wasn't sure what was going on, but somehow he doubted these pirates would come piling out guns blazing. If they meant to go out like that they would've holed up and made him come in after them.

No, they were going to try and make a deal, and he had a really good idea what that deal would look like.

When six figures came out, one a quarian being held by the neck with a pistol to his head, his suspicions were confirmed.

"Best you listen up!" the pirate yelled—turian, by the sound of him. "We're getting off this planet and up into orbit, and we're taking the kid with us."

"What makes you think we care?" Schuder asked coolly. The shotgunners would be useless for this, or close enough to it. They might throw the pirates off a little, anyway.

The turian laughed. "He's the only reason anyone would come here. I know all the tricks, so don't bother playing games with me. Now, here's how it's going to be. My men and I are getting on that shuttle, there, and we're going to rendezvous with our ship. We'll get on that ship, and leave the kid on the shuttle—with a bomb that'll go off if the shuttle's tampered with or it stops receiving a signal before six hours are up."

Schuder felt his eyebrows climb up his forehead. This was…impressively done. The turian was avoiding most of the classic pitfalls of the hostage taker, especially the old question of "how do we know we'll get the hostage back alive if we do what you want." This guy was definitely too smart to let go.

There was, however, a basic problem. "How do we know the bomb isn't set to go off in six hours?"

"Thought you might say that, but I got to ask you—what do you think the odds are that you can kill me and my men without getting the kid dead?"

Schuder looked at his HUD. Bates and Whately were to his left, M'Zangwe and Hawthorne on his right. Each had their target selected, and he designated the last one as his. The pirates had not been smart enough to not stand still.

"Now," he whispered, and five sniper rifles barked as one. The four pirates went down with holes in their helmets, while the leader howled as Schuder's shot blew his hand off. The quarian ducked forward, and Kal slammed a stasis field down around the turian.

"Get the restraints," the biotic ordered, and Quill and Alana ran forward. Kal was strong, but the field wouldn't last more than ten seconds or so. However, that wasn't entirely a bad thing, since moving someone who was in a stasis field was well-nigh impossible, and dropping out of a stasis field was…disorienting, to say the least.

Which was why, when the field dropped, the turian dropped with it, and didn't have time to move before his arms were behind his back and he was on the ground.

The quarian, for some reason, did not look pleased at this turn of events.

* * *

Twelve hours later, as the two ships made for the relay, Schuder understood why he hadn't exactly been happy.

Ferguson, Quill, and Alana had spent two hours burrowing into the computers in the headquarters, then another two pulling data from all the omni-tools they'd captured, while the rest of the troops combed through the base for anything useful and secured the _Malacca_ and its surviving crewmembers, all of whom were, frankly, gutter-sweepings with no useful information.

The omni-tools and the computers, however, had been much more valuable, at least in a few cases. Some of the pirates' video recordings would end up accounting for a few missing ship reports, and the computers had a treasure trove of information about pirate bases, contacts, and fences.

Unfortunately, there was nothing linking anybody to the real movers and shakers of the criminal underworld. What there was, however, indicated that vas Ryel had been…less than forthcoming…about why Lor'Tal nar Alarei was important to him.

There was nothing definite, of course, but Lor'Tal had apparently been asking questions about the warlords in this sector and their activities—subtly, but not subtly enough, because somebody had lured him out to Ploitari, where the turian, whose name was Ancus Faustus, had captured him sneaking around the base. At that point, Ancus had made his one serious mistake—he had assumed that the quarian was working for vas Ryel, and had sent him a ransom notice, for a bit higher than the contract for Lor'Tal's hide.

It wasn't hard to add up the numbers at that point. His suspicions were correct—vas Ryel worked for the Admiralty Board, and had hired Schuder either for plausible deniability or because his other teams were unavailable and he'd needed to scrape one up on short notice. Perhaps both.

The question was whether or not to hold the information in reserve or tell vas Ryel they knew what he was up to. Probably the former, at least for now, would be his recommendation, but it wasn't his call about whether humanity should open clandestine communications with the Migrant Fleet.

After all, Admiral Hackett ran the Sellsword program, not him.


End file.
